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Ça fait longtemps, enchanté, Вулиця Віскозна, 3, Kyiv (2026)

02/08/2022

Spiro Mounds: la civilización perdida de América del Norte

Un tesoro perdido en el tiempo: los saqueadores destruyeron la mayor colección de reliquias de nativos americanos de Estados Unidos. Ahora, muchos se han reunido en una nueva exhibición del museo.

En 1933, en el extremo este del estado estadounidense de Oklahoma, un grupo de buscadores de oro fracasados observó cómo su compañero clavaba un pico en la arcilla. Los testigos dicen que el aire siseó al escapar de una cámara funeraria que había estado sellada durante 500 años.

Los compatriotas se abrieron paso entre los escombros hasta un montículo de nativos americanos, asombrados por lo que vieron. Dentro yacía un tesoro inimaginable. Cientos de caracolas grabadas, miles de cuentas de perlas y conchas, corazas de cobre, grandes tubos con efigies humanas y montones de mantas y túnicas de colores brillantes. Los periódicos luego llamarían al hallazgo una "tumba del rey Tutankamón" estadounidense.

"Nunca se había descubierto nada como esto en ningún otro lugar de América del Norte", dijo Eric Singleton, curador de etnología en el Museo Nacional del Patrimonio Vaquero y del Oeste en la ciudad de Oklahoma. Pero el tesoro pronto desapareció.

31/07/2022

El misterio sin resolver del 'Stargate' de Sri Lanka

En los últimos años, Internet ha estado lleno de especulaciones de que una talla similar a un gráfico en Anuradhapura es una puerta estelar: una antigua puerta de entrada a través de la cual los humanos pueden ingresar al Universo.

La ciudad sagrada de Anuradhapura en Sri Lanka es un lugar poco probable para verse envuelto en una historia fantástica de ovnis y sucesos de otro mundo. Conocido localmente como Rajarata (Tierra de los Reyes), el Patrimonio de la Humanidad de la Unesco fue el primer reino establecido en la isla (en el 377 a. C.) y se encuentra en el corazón de la cultura budista de Sri Lanka. Hoy en día, es uno de los lugares más visitados del país y atrae a peregrinos devotos de todo el país a sus antiguos templos budistas y estupas gigantes en forma de cúpula.

Pero esta ciudad santa también alberga algo mucho más curioso. Aquí, en Ranmasu Uyana (Parque del Pez Dorado), un antiguo parque urbano de 40 acres rodeado por tres templos budistas, hay un gráfico que supuestamente es un mapa para descubrir los secretos del Universo.

29/07/2022

Los sonidos que reconstruyen las preciosas bóvedas de Notre Dame

La arqueóloga de paisajes sonoros Mylène Pardoën está reproduciendo los sonidos que se escucharon dentro y fuera de la catedral de París desde su construcción en el siglo XIII hasta el incendio de 2019.

Voces apagadas resuenan bajo las bóvedas y los niños juegan cerca de la explanada. Los cascos hacen clic en los adoquines del siglo XVIII mientras los comerciantes regatean en la distancia. ¿Alguna vez imaginó los sonidos que dieron vida a un lugar como la catedral de Notre-Dame de París hace cientos de años?

Esto es lo que intenta conseguir Mylène Pardoën. Con sede en la ciudad francesa de Lyon, se presenta como arqueóloga de paisajes sonoros, una profesión que inventó después de comenzar a cuestionar por qué los museos a menudo descuidan el uso del sonido en sus exhibiciones. Durante los últimos 10 años, ha estado recorriendo monumentos y obras de construcción en todo el país y analizando entornos acústicos para ayudarse a recrear sonidos que nos permitan viajar en el tiempo.

27/07/2022

El micólogo chileno celebra el "reino oculto" de los hongos

Un encuentro casual con un hongo inspiró a Giuliana Furci a convertirse en campeona de estos organismos que pueden alimentarse, curarse e incluso combatir el cambio climático.

Giuliana Furci caminaba por una selva tropical templada con una antena atada a su espalda en busca de un escurridizo zorro cuando se topó con el hongo que cambiaría su vida. En ese momento, ella era una estudiante de 19 años en un viaje de campo en Chiloé, un archipiélago golpeado por el clima frente a la costa de la Región de los Lagos de Chile. Su trabajo consistía en instalar trampas para capturar zorros de Darwin, etiquetar a estas criaturas en peligro de extinción y luego devolverlas a la naturaleza.

"Éramos de la vieja escuela, así que usamos radiotelemetría para rastrearlos", dijo. "Mientras caminaba, pasaba junto a tantos hongos y uno grande de color rojo anaranjado en el tocón de un árbol me llamó la atención. Tenía muchas ganas de saber su nombre, pero era imposible averiguar nada". La falta de información sobre los hongos chilenos golpeó como un "relámpago" a Furci, quien estudiaba la acuicultura en este período. "De repente pensé: 'Esto es lo que voy a hacer [con mi vida]'", dijo. "Nada había pasado antes conmigo y los hongos, aparte de probar la psilocibina (hongos mágicos) en algún momento. Pero esa no fue la razón. Fue solo este hongo en el bosque".

25/07/2022

El último barco conocido del comercio de esclavos de EE. UU.

El descubrimiento de los restos del Clotilda, 160 años después de su hundimiento, trae nueva vida e interés al asentamiento construido por los sobrevivientes originales.
"Es una locura pensar que habrían pasado por aquí", dijo Darron Patterson, mientras estacionaba su automóvil en un trozo de césped con vista al turbio río Mobile. Como presidente de la Asociación de Descendientes de Clotilda, Patterson está bien versado en hablar sobre el viaje del Clotilda, el último barco de esclavos conocido que llegó a América. Su tatarabuelo fue Kupollee, más tarde rebautizado como Pollee Allen; uno de los 110 hombres, mujeres y niños robados cruelmente de Benin en África occidental y llevados a los EE. UU. a bordo del famoso barco.

23/07/2022

The key to Bhutan's happiness

As the Kingdom of Bhutan opens its borders, a Buddhist monk shares his secrets for understanding the nation's unique approach to happiness.
"Happiness is the concern of everyone," said His Eminence Khedrupchen Rinpoche. "Whether or not you acknowledge it, this is the purpose of every human being."

The Fifth Reincarnate and head of the Sangchen Ogyen Tsuklag Monastery in Trongsa, Bhutan, Rinpoche knows all about the pursuit of happiness. Ascending to his position at the age of 19 in 2009, he was one of the youngest ever Rinpoches (spiritual master) in Bhutan at the time. Now 31, he has dedicated the last 12 years of his life to teaching the world about Buddhist principles and how they can be applied to make life happier every day, regardless of one's culture or religion.

21/07/2022

England’s sleepy ‘Scientology town’

The sleepy Sussex market town of East Grinstead has gained a reputation in recent decades as a hotbed for offbeat religious activity.

It has been described as Britain’s strangest town and the real-life answer to Twin Peaks. But East Grinstead hardly exudes a sense of dreamlike Lynchian terror. Elegant 14th-Century buildings house bookshops and jewellers; butchers hawk burgers and sausages from market stalls; and friends cluster cheerfully outside cafes. The scene is one of pleasant gentility. It all seems so… normal.

Beneath the surface, however, this otherwise unremarkable Sussex market town is charged with an unlikely religious zeal. A disproportionate number of spiritual organisations have made their home here; some are ancient and some modern, some orthodox and others unconventional. One group in particular has generated more column inches than the rest.

19/07/2022

The English county with more waterways than Venice

Norfolk's seafaring traditions continue to shape the county's cultural identity, with passionate people on the Norfolk Broads working towards a greener, more sustainable future.

We were so close I could have touched it. The boat's enormous white sail, outstretched like the wing of a swan poised for battle, was pulled tight with an unexpected gust of wind and we were headed straight for a speedboat anchored on the riverbank.

"Quant!" shouted Dean Howard, our skipper, from the helm.

The crew sprang into action, running across the deck to haul a wooden stick the length of the boat into the water. Using their bodies as leverage, they pushed the quant into the muddy riverbed below in an attempt to turn 15 tonnes of solid wood in a few seconds. We held our breath: nothing. But a boat this size requires patience. With the grace of a ballet dancer, our 52ft wherry turned at the last possible moment, missing the stationary speedboat by an arm's length.

I was sailing the Norfolk Broads, a wetland in the east of England with more navigable waterways than Venice or Amsterdam, aboard White Moth, a wide, solid oak wherry unique to the Norfolk Broads. With more than 125 miles of lock-free rivers and lakes stretching across the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Broads are a network so large that, up until the 1950s, they were thought to be a natural phenomenon. It was only when British botanist Joyce Lambert discovered that most of the lakes had perpendicular walls and a flat bottom that the Broads' history was rewritten. Further research by the University of Cambridge found that Britain's largest protected wetland had in fact been hand-dug by medieval peat diggers between the 12th and 14th Centuries.

17/07/2022

India’s elephant-friendly tea garden

An Indian tea farm is the first in the world to embrace elephant conservation practices. Meet the farmer saving elephants one cup of tea at a time.

While most people think of poaching as the most significant danger to the world’s elephant population, there is another threat from a seemingly unlikely source: tea. In India, tea farms have sprouted up along much of the Asian elephant’s habitat, and the farms’ deep drainage ditches, harmful pesticides and electric fences now mark the endangered elephants’ natural migration routes between India and Bhutan.

Although elephants do not eat tea leaves, they often pass through the fields during their long migrations, encountering hostile humans along the way. During the last 75 years, the Asian elephant population in India has declined by 50%, and in 2018 an estimated 64 people died as a result of human-elephant conflict.

In the Indian state of Assam, tea farmer Tenzing Bodosa has found his own way of creating a more symbiotic human-elephant relationship. Bodosa’s three-hectare elephant-friendly tea garden forgoes the dangerous drainage ditches and electric fences used by other growers in the area, allowing migrating elephants to move through the farm without the threat of injury. Workers on Bodosa’s farm let passing elephants roam in peace, reducing the elephant-related injuries and deaths that can occur when humans attempt to chase the animals away. Bodosa’s farm also does not use chemical pesticides or fertilisers that can be poisonous to elephants and the vegetation they eat.

15/07/2022

Where humans don't fear leopards

While leopards have been targeted for poaching or revenge killings in much of India, the people of Bera continue to live in peaceful cohabitation with the graceful felines.

Our 4x4 negotiated through sparse woodlands and eventually heaved its way up a steep incline before jolting to a stop. A vast, boulder-strewn landscape rolled out below us. This undulating terrain is the region of Gorwar, which stretches along the edge of the Aravalli Range in south-west Rajasthan.

We were on an early morning safari in the village of Bera, a three-hour drive from the tourist mecca of Udaipur, to witness an anomaly: human-leopard cohabitation, with zero conflict.

Leopard numbers have been on the rise in India in recent years, with a 2018 report estimating the population at 12,852. Human-animal conflicts and mutual encroachments in a densely populated country have been inevitable. The graceful felines have been poached for their luscious coats and other body parts that fetch huge prices in illegal markets. They have been killed by groups of villagers, a retaliatory measure for attacks on precious livestock or simply out of fear when the large cats have strayed into human spaces.

In the first six months of 2021, 102 leopards were poached and another 22 were killed by villagers. Between 2012 to 2018, 238 leopards were killed in the state of Rajasthan alone. And media reports of leopard attacks on humans have been alarmingly frequent.

In this remote, pastoral corner of Rajasthan, however, it has been a continuous saga of peaceful cohabitation between the leopards and the Rabaris, a semi-nomadic shepherding community that migrated to India from Iran more than a millennium ago. It is estimated that about 60 leopards, along with hyenas, desert foxes, wild boars, antelopes and other smaller animals, currently prowl this land.

08/07/2022

Where asking someone's age isn't rude

Though considered impertinent in many cultures, asking someone's age in South Korea is a social contract that establishes the pecking order between speakers.

The first time British expat Joel Bennett understood he had committed a major linguistic faux pas was when he thanked a restaurant owner for a good meal during his first trip to South Korea.

The owner was a female in her 60s and Bennett, then 23, said "gomawo", which translates to a breezy "thanks" in English. He thought he was being polite.

Unbeknownst to him, Bennett, now 33, had used a casual, informal version of "thank you" that would have been construed as rude and insulting had he been Korean.

"I didn't realise there were so many ways to say thank you," Bennett said. "I always just thought thank you was thank you."

But in Korean culture, as a person several decades younger than the owner, Bennett was expected to have used the honorific form of the Korean language, a complex linguistic system with multiple levels of speech that has been described as one of the most complicated languages in the world as it requires constantly assessing one's seniority, social status and level of intimacy in relation to the addressee.

04/07/2022

Scientists discover new giant water lily species

A new species of giant water lily has been discovered - and it’s been hiding in plain sight for 177 years.
The huge plant had been in the archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and was growing in a number of aquatic collections but it was mistakenly identified as another species.
Now a detailed scientific study has revealed that it is new to science.
It also holds the record as the world's largest water lily, with leaves growing more than 3m (10ft) wide.
The plant has been called Victoria boliviana - named after Bolivia, where it grows in a single water basin in part of the Amazon river system.

Ça fait longtemps, enchanté

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